Let's Enforce Joining The Forces

Let's Enforce Joining The Forces

By: Rachel Marsden

While Canadians soldiers were busy “peacekeeping” (i.e., fighting terrorists) in Afghanistan last weekend, a Taliban spokesman told The Canadian Press: “We think that when we kill enough Canadians, they will quit war and return home.”

He’s talking about the country that sent 600,000 troops into World War I, and captured Vimy Ridge from the Germans 89 years ago this week after both the French and Brits had failed. The same nation that saw 15,000 Canadians fight alongside their Allied cousins on D-Day in World War II.

What has caused our international image to become so tarnished? Decades of weak-kneed, pansy-fannied liberalism, that’s what. My solution: Two years of mandatory military service for every Canadian, right out of high school.

Here’s the rationale:

Too many of our spoiled kids go straight from mom and dad’s basement into the ivory tower of academia, where they hone their skills in the fine art of leftist BS. Noam Chomsky didn’t give these kids their freedom — soldiers did. That’s who they should be learning their politics and history from, along with some useful trades and skills.

Too many Canadian youths are fat and lazy. Just look at basic training as one big ParticipAction program.

Nothing says “gender equality” better than a woman who knows her way around an M16 assault rifle. I suspect violence against women in Canada would decrease dramatically.

PM Stephen Harper says he wants to recruit 23,000 new soldiers. Young people won’t even vote unless they can speed-dial it in, a la American Idol. Unless Harper plans to fight and defend our interests using PlayStations, good luck with those recruitment goals without mandatory military service.

The ripple effect on immigration: If all immigrants knew Canada’s “freebies” had to be earned through mandatory military service by their children, it would screen out any leeches. Also, those hell-bent on killing “infidels” would think twice about coming here if their kids had to fight alongside said infidels to defend western democracy.

Toronto Mayor David Miller has said young people need jobs so they don’t shoot up the city. Here’s a job that will redirect their misguided enthusiasm.

Of course there will be those who “conscienciously” object to military service and those who are so psychologically incompetent or just plain inept that you wouldn’t want them handling a sharp pair of scissors, let alone a weapon. These people will become experts at peeling potatoes and various other domestic tasks. Those who master the cheese grater can graduate to babysitting polar bears in the Arctic for the duration of their service term. Establishing a military presence up there is one of Harper’s goals anyway.

A final clarification for lefties about to go into convulsions: Mandatory military service isn’t a wartime “draft.” The former increases the talent pool, whereas the latter can weaken a country’s military might — and we wouldn’t want to ruin Canada’s reputation as a worldwide military superpower as seen by people like, say, that Taliban spokesman, would we?

PUBLISHED: TORONTO SUN (April 17/06)